2

It has been unexpectedly raining, maybe that’s why nobody is coming to fix my little Ford Laser, Daniel has isolated the faulty part, something to do with the exhaust, or the manifold, a small part, rusted and broken, and he’s gotten a new one, now all it is is to put things together, as they were, but the trouble is, the process is so slow, and haphazard, because the lad’s subject to drug-induced haziness and interplanetary escapades, and I’m wondering if there won’t be a few more screws loose by the end of the reconstruction. Hopefully by tomorrow it’ll all be hanging together just right, and then no more excuses for not getting on with my life, filling up the pantry, heading to Centrelink, organising the audit, moving and shaking a few La Luna people, attending the theatre, bushwalking gymming and even skirtchasing, for I desperately need something to write about after all, I don’t go out much, though I’ve been out to dinner a couple of times in the past week, the same Thai restaurant, on Churchill Road, two minutes’ walk away, with my foster-lad, who of the three I’ve had under my wing so far is the most suited, pity he has to move on so soon, because he’s based in the south, and I have to stay here in the north, cultivating my garden, marvelling at how well the florid thyme grows, at why the basil yellows and droops and the salvia dies, he’s sixteen, the lad, and thoughtful, comparatively, and naïve too of course, how vulnerable they are with their occasional mawkish pronouncements, thankfully not able to see themselves through the eyes of a jaded forty-eight-year-old, and their wild ambitions, of forming bands or becoming champion kickboxers or getting married and having just a daughter, of being able to focus on just one thing until they get it right, I really find it difficult to say anything to all that, better when the discussion turns to funerals and organ donations and worms, and then to brain transplants suddenly and what would it be like to have your brain transplanted into a woman’s body, he thought it would be novel for a while but then it would get boring, funny that, but the conversation’s still a bit limited, I mainly make encouraging grunts and nod a lot, and have to remember I’m the adult here, the carer, and three days ago I gave him the money to go to the shop and buy his own toothbrush and toothpaste, because he forgot to pack them before leaving his house in the south to stay with me in the north, which is quite revealing I suppose, and still he hasn’t opened that toothbrush, it sits there on the bathroom sink still in its packet does he think I haven’t noticed, and why can’t I bring myself to tell him, to do my job, just in some jokey way, hey is that your week-old socks I’m whiffing or is it the faint breeze sighing over those mucilaginous rocks?